


Shape of Freedom

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Utter Nonsense [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Fantasy, I dont even know bois, M/M, Shape of Water AU, and AO3 is being a bitch right now so lets hope this gets posted ok, mentions of torture, this was an accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 21:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14702379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: He’s almost done the floor when he notices movement out of the corner of his eye. It takes a few more moments but the movement happens again and this time when Rhodey looks over he catches what caused the movement.Its... shocking to look at. Some kind of fish... man... thing. The red and gold scales are quite striking though, and so are the long, gossamer fins fluttering around his body. Its the gash in his side that catches Rhodey’s attention though because its darkening the water around it as blood leaves the body of the man in the tank.The fish looks down, covering the wound with his hand before he swims off.





	Shape of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> This was long enough that I decided to post it from my Tumblr to my AO3 account as well. I accidentally worked hard on this thing because a reader was nice enough to try and stimulate ideas for me.
> 
> Warnings for some torture consistent with the content of The Shape of Water.

Rhodey is probably lucky that Sam has his back otherwise he’d be late to work every day. He has no idea how he manages given that he gets up on time every day, leaves with plenty of time to get to work every day, and yet he still only manages to punch in  _barely_  on time. “Rhodey, you seriously need to get your shit together,” Sam mumbles at him, handing him his punch in card. 

He sighs, punching in, and sticking his card in the right slot. “I told you, I always leave with time to spare but this always happens,” he says. “Thanks though.”

Sam gives him a  _look_  but allows Rhodey his excuses before they set off with their daily tasks. Its the same shit every day and Rhodey has to deal with the fact that he’s smarter than everyone else in this fucking building. Sam too- while all the white guys were trying to figure out the math he and Sam usually have all their problems solved and then they’ve solved unanticipated problems with the new math before anyone even figures out the initial problem. But being smart and black isn’t exactly easy and even when Rhodey  _did_  manage to convince someone to listen to his solutions they resented him for having a solution to begin with.

So he and Sam clean things even though they’re way more qualified to do the jobs around them than the people currently working literally any other position. But Sam makes the work fun at least so when they’re outside of the prying eyes of those around them they talk about everything and anything under the sun. They’re talking about which color is the beset color when they’re interrupted rudely.

They get their orders to go clean a usually classified space and Sam exchanges a look with him before they shrug and move off to do their jobs. “You ever wonder if they send us to do these jobs because they think we’re too stupid to understand what we’re looking at?” Sam asks in a low voice as they move down the hall with their cleaning cart.

“I know for a fact that’s why we get these jobs,” Rhodey says.

“Too bad no one else likes black people either- it’d be kind of nice to sell these assholes out to prove a point,” Sam says.

“Probably not worth the results though,” Rhodey points out. “Better to just deal.”

Sam lets out a long sigh and they let themselves into the room they’re sent to clean. Rhodey’s eyebrows shoot up and he doesn’t have to look at Sam to know he’s had the same reaction. “What the hell  _happened_  here?” Sam asks softly.

Rhodey looks over the large amount of blood and water in the room and shakes his head. “I have no idea,” he says softly. They slowly set to work, cautious in case whatever it was that resulted in all the blood was still around. It takes awhile before Sam lets out a yell and jumps back, catching Rhodey’s attention. He looks over and raises an eyebrow. “Is that...?”

“A finger? Yeah. That’s... nasty,” he says. Rhodey wrinkles his nose and grabs a bag from the cart and carefully holds it open for Sam. He looks at the finger, than the bag, and back at the finger again before he raises an eyebrow. “You expect me to pick that thing up?” Sam asks and Rhodey shrugs.

“You found it, you deal with it,” he says.

“Yeah,  _I_ found it,  _you_  deal with it. I did my dues almost stepping on that thing,” he says.

“I am not touching that thing. You found it, your problem.” Rhodey rustles the bag a little and Sam gives him a dirty look, gingerly leaning forward so he can pick the finger up. He all but throws it at Rhodey, who lets out a loud yell and fumbling a little but ultimately catches the severed digit in the bag. “You are  _nasty._ You can take this thing to its owner now, I want nothing to do with it,” he says, wrinkling his whole face in disgust.

Sam rolls his eyes, “fine, but you get stuck dealing with the mess,” he says and Rhodey sighs. 

“Fine,” he mumbles. A quick glance around tells him its not that much work, but its enough work that its time consuming. Sam runs off and Rhodey sets to work on the floor, mumbling to himself as he sets to work mopping. 

He’s almost done the floor when he notices movement out of the corner of his eye. At first he thinks Sam might have taken pity on him but he realizes the movement is from the wrong part of the room. When he looks over he doesn’t find anything so he goes back to work. It takes a few more moments but the movement happens again and this time when Rhodey looks over he catches what caused the movement.

Its... shocking to look at. Some kind of fish... man... thing. The red and gold scales are quite striking though, and so are the long, gossamer fins fluttering around his body. Its the gash in his side that catches Rhodey’s attention though because its darkening the water around it as blood leaves the body of the man in the tank.

The fish looks down, covering the wound with his hand before he swims off. Rhodey frowns, unsure what to do.

***

Its a whim to cook more eggs than he usually eats in the morning and its more of a whim to eat lunch in a room he isn’t supposed to be in but he also knows no one will look there for him. Its rare that people paid much attention to the help around them. He sits at the edge of the pond like space in the middle of the room, curious to see if its connected to the tank he last saw the fish guy in. He settles in, eyes on the tank as he eats his eggs.

That’s probably why he doesn’t notice the fish man sneak up on him, swimming quietly enough that Rhodey jumps when a scaly hand reaches out of the water and snatches one of his eggs off the side of the pond before swimming off, far less quiet about his retreat. Rhodey settles himself back in after a moment of watching the water before he turns his back to the pond again. Its on a whim that he looks over at the tank and he’s surprised to find his companion there, watching him with the egg in his hand. 

Rhodey shakes his head, smiling a little before he turns back to his food. He notices that the mermaid doesn’t eat the egg until Rhodey does. It’s an obvious test to see whether or not the food is poisoned and its smart. It doesn’t occur to him until he’s on his way home that the fish had also intentionally watched his reaction to his stolen food. He wonders if he passed the test.

***

Tony  _really_  hates that Rumlow guy. He seems to think Tony has some secrets to unlock and even if he could communicate with these people in a language they’d immediately understand he wouldn’t give them information on principal. He doesn’t like being treated like shit for no reason. He does, however, rather like his lunch dates with the dark skinned man that feeds him... well, something. Whatever the oval object is it tastes much better than whatever the hell Rumlow tries to feed him. Plus he’s sure that the food is drugged because he always feels groggy after eating. Rhodey’s eggs- he had eventually learned his name thanks to that friend of his calling after him- at least help him avoid eating Rumlow’s food. Not much, but enough that it gives him more strength to figure out how the hell to get out of here.

Rhodey is feeding him eggs and chattering about his day- he’s figured out quickly that Tony understands even if he can’t respond- when the door opens. Rhodey lets out a soft string of curse words before he grabs his bag and runs off around a corner and Rumlow marches in. Tony sinks into the water a little, glaring at the man. He bit one finger off, he’ll go for his hand next. Fucking prick.

“What are you doing near the edge of the water?” he asks. Tony growls at him for lack of a better response. 

Rumlow rolls his eyes, “get him out,” he says to his goons. They exchange a look with each other because they aren’t  _too_  stupid to miss the fact that the water is Tony’s territory. No one really fared well with him in here even with the fucking  _collar_  around his neck. He’s working on picking the lock on that.

They do eventually manage though because Tony still has whatever drug he’s being fed in his system and by now they’re used to this. If he were faster it wouldn’t be a problem, but he’s not so here he is, on the ground outside of the water gasping a little for breath. He can breathe outside of water but not much and not for long so he tends to save that for the real emergencies. When Rumlow asks him a question he  _knows_  Tony can’t answer and proceeds to electrocute him with that stick thing it quickly escalates to that emergency status. If not for his superior hearing he would have missed Rhodey’s small gasp but his hearing is built for water- he hears better than humans. Its a good thing now because Rhodey would have just given himself away if that weren’t true.

When Tony get prodded with that thing for the third damn time he notices the egg. He’s lucky Rumlow hasn’t noticed yet, or his goons, but he does notice a third human hanging back a little, examining the situation a little. His skin is a little darker than those around him and Tony has come to recognize that this gives him a lower status. He’s not sure  _why_  exactly- in his experience the darker skinned ones tended to be nicer. In his own home the pale parts of his skin are mostly irrelevant. They live too deep to see it most of the time and really only rise up high enough to see the colors of their skin during mating seasons. Tony happens to know he’s quite pretty- his striking colors are rare, but its fin color that matters, not the rest. But he supposes humans don’t have fins so they have no choice but to care about the rest.

“You need to stop, he has to go back in the water,” the man tells Rumlow but he’s shaken off.

“Shut up. You’re only here because you’re supposed to be an expert on sea life,” he snaps. “And when this one is dead you can be an expert on him too.”

Tony lets out an annoyed squeak and gets electrocuted for his efforts but the slightly tan man pulls Rumlow back. Bad idea considering he nearly gets prodded too. “You can’t  _kill_  him! He’s a rare species, you need to put him back in the sea!” he yells.

“You better stay in line or-” Rumlow starts but the other man rolls his eyes.

“Or  _what,_  Rumlow. You pulled me out of a war zone- you think you can do better than me watching my family die?” he asks. The room grows uncomfortably silent for a few moments before Rumlow, to Tony’s surprise, backs down.

“Put it back in the water. I’ll put in the order to euthanize it,” he says, looking at the other man as he says it. The other man offers a protest that’s quickly shot down and Tony is tossed unceremoniously back into the water.

When the brown man looks over to him Tony looks pointedly at the egg. Rumlow and his men are leaving, but he’s hoping he can communicate with this one. He follows Tony’s gaze and his eyes widen a little before he turns back to Tony, who looks pointedly to where Rhodey is hiding. Thankfully for him Rhodey is half leaning around the corner and jumps back behind it right as the other man looks over. He considers this for a moment before he nods to Tony, “I wil be back for you,” he says softly before bending and tossing him the egg. Tony catches it and disappears back into the water.

***

Rhodey is skulking the area around the classified room out when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He jumps, spinning around and relaxing when he recognizes the man. “Uh, hey?” he asks more than states.

“My name is Yinsen and I’m going to make the assumption that you care about the fish in that tank. You feed him.” Rhodey nods because he doesn’t know what else to say really. “We need to get him out and you would know this building much better than I would. And we have two days to do this.”

Rhodey swears under his breath, “I... might have some help we can use,” he says, hoping to hell Sam will go along with this.

***

Sam frowns at him, “why the hell do you care about the fish guy?” he asks as the man takes an egg gingerly from the side of the pond.

“Because he’s nice. He doesn’t seem to care much that I’m black,” he says. He listens to Rhodey, he knows this because he once gave a suggestion for getting that collar off and he followed Rhodey’s suggestions immediately. There was no hesitation, no condescending looks, nothing. He just listened and followed Rhodey’s advice.

“I don’t care if you’re black either,” Sam points out and Rhodey rolls his eyes.

“You’re also black, that doesn’t count. He listens though, and he’s intelligent. Plus they’re torturing him in here, you can’t tell me you’re alright with that,” he says. Sam is a better man than that, Rhodey knows. Off to the side Yinsen lets them work it out while he unpacks some things from a bag. 

He goes to hand the mermaid a sandwich before he pulls it back fast, “wait, this has fish in it, is that cannibalism?” he asks more to himself than their current companion but his musing are interrupted by a hand sticking out of the water. Apparently not. Yinsen hands the sandwich over and turns back to Rhodey and Sam. “Are we all in agreement?” he asks and Rhodey turns to Sam, raising an eyebrow. 

Sam lets out a soft sigh. “I’m going to regret this,” he mumbles.

*

Rhodey is in too deep with his fish stick but Sam doesn’t want to tell him that. He brings the damn thing lunch every day and its clear that this is an expected activity that, in the fish’s defense, it clearly enjoys. They plan based on Rhodey and Sam’s knowledge of the building and Yinsen’s knowledge of their fishy friend which is, admittedly, not much.

They’re prepared to move the mermaid when it reaches out to Rhodey, gently, holding its hand out. Rhodey frowns at it for a moment before it shakes its head and makes a ‘come here’ gesture that has Sam prepared to launch this thing off a building. Rhodey, damn idiot, goes over though and the fish reaches up and carefully presses its hand to Rhodey’s cheek. Sam lets out a yell when the fucking thing  _lights up_  and Rhodey gasps softly. He steps forward to help a guy out but Yinsen holds him back. It takes a few moments but Rhodey pulls back. 

“He used to live in the Mediterranean Sea. In our language his name translates roughly to ‘Tony’,” he says. Yinsen gasps softly and Rhodey grins. “I knew you were smarter than Rumlow gave you credit for,” he says.

“Yeah, fuck Rumlow. And honestly fuck this psychic fish, lets just get this thing the hell out of here so we can go back to our regularly scheduled lives,” Sam says, waving a hand around.

“Can you-” Yinsen starts, walking towards Tony but he quickly pulls back, giving Yinsen a suspicious look. Yinsen looks hurt about it but Sam rolls his eyes.

“Dude has been tormented and tortured by scientists, he probably isn’t too keen to let you test out his... powers,” he says. The fish- Tony he guesses- gives him an appraising look then before seemingly approving and swimming away from Yinsen a little and towards Rhodey. Well isn’t that just freaking sweet. He shakes his head and moves the laundry basket closer to the pond.

“Alright fishy, get in the basket,” Sam tells him.

Rhodey gives him an offended look, “you could at least use his name,” he says.

“I don’t care about this fish’s name, I just want to get him  _out_  so I can go back to not worrying about being killed by Rumlow or something equally awful,” he says. “So in the basket,” he tells Tony.

Rhodey nods to him and Tony dives back into the water, prompting Sam to make an irritated noise. He resurfaces a few moments later lacking his metal collar though so Sam guesses that disappearance was necessary. They have to help him into the basket, which is only made more difficult by Tony’s clear preference for Rhodey but when Sam spies a few gnarly scars on his body he can see why that trust extends only to one person. They achieve their goal though and that’s when the move onto the second phase of the plan. Getting him through the building.

Thankfully Rhodey pushes the damn cart because Sam is too nervous to do much more than focus on being normal as they move through the halls. They’ve prepared for this of course, but preparation doesn’t do much to actually prepare you for the real thing. They make their way around the final corner when the alarm starts going off and Sam swears along with Rhodey and they start running. Sam all but throws himself in the back of the van, yanking the basket in as Rhodey tries to shove it into place. A gun goes off close to them and Rhodey yells, giving the basket one last shove before they’ve successfully got it in and he slams the doors shut.

Tony sticks his head out of the wet towels he’s currently housed in and Sam shoves his head back into the towels, “don’t stick your head out to be seen! Jesus Christ,” he mumbles just as the lights go out and Rhodey throws himself into the passenger seat.

“A little late,” Yinsen tells Rhodey as he steps on the gas.

“Just on time, we were a little early. I know my way around these systems, I could probably do a better job building them,” he says. Probably is giving the idiots who ran this place way too much credit. Both he and Sam were much smarter than any of the morons hired to work here. It had been easy to rig the system to go black for a solid half an hour while they made their escape. That and if they didn’t black things out they wouldn’t make it past the electronic gate.

*

Releasing Tony had been difficult, especially when they nearly got found  _twice_  but they managed. Tony hadn’t wanted to go, lingering way too long looking at Rhodey before he finally takes off into the sea.

*

It takes a long time for him to find Rhodey again and when he does he’s older. He lives by the sea now though so Tony works on getting as close as possible. The first thing he leaves for Rhodey sits there for almost a month before he finally finds it. Its a fluke that his second gift is found within a week, and after the third gift is found Rhodey knows to stick around for awhile.

When Tony finally catches him there he swims over enthusiastically, probably scaring the hell out of the kid he got stuck bringing with him but Peter will stay far enough behind to be safe. He’s heard the stories, seen Tony’s scars, he knows better than to be seen by humans. Rhodey grins when he sees him though and Tony reaches out immediately, pleased when Rhodey leans forward to offer his hand. He pulls Rhodey closer, laughing mostly to himself when Rhodey looks briefly alarmed.

He presses as close as he can, carefully pulling Rhodey’s head towards his own until their foreheads touched. Its a lot easier to do this that way.  _I’ve been looking for you_  he thinks at Rhodey.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
